When, however, by a pure effort of will, he rose above this weakness
and looked her full and clear in the face, a new jealousy of himself
arose: she stood there so lovely, so attractive, so tenfold womanly
in her misery, that he found he must keep a stern watch upon
himself, lest interest in her as a woman should trespass on the
sphere of simple humanity, wherein with favouring distinction is
recognized neither Jew nor Greek, prince nor peasant--not even man
or woman, only the one human heart that can love and suffer. It
aided him in this respect however, that his inherent modesty caused
him to look up to Helen as to a suffering goddess, noble, grand,
lovely, only ignorant of the one secret, of which he, haunting the
steps of the Unbound Prometheus, had learned a few syllables, broken
yet potent, which he would fain, could he find how, communicate in
their potency to her. And besides, to help her now looking upon him
from the distant height of conscious superiority, he must persuade
her to what she regarded as an unendurable degradation! The
circumstances assuredly protected him from any danger of offering
her such expression of sympathy as might not have been welcome to
her.
It is true that the best help a woman can get is from a right
man--equally true with its converse; but let the man who ventures
take heed.
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